Blackburn Hawks downed

The Jets finally got off the mark with their first victory of the season at the fourth attempt with a 5-4 victory over the Blackburn Hawks.

Captain Ben Milhench:

“It was important for us to get the first win under our belts. We have been training hard over the last week to prepare of the game and it paid off tonight. Looking ahead we have a tough run of games coming up and will need to up our game again.”

First Period
The Hawks opened the scoring when David Meikle fired them in front (3.08). Matt Jeffcock levelled the scores less than a minute late (4.01) for the first of a four point night. Ben Lowe doubled the Jets lead (10.39) on a feed from Jeffcock.

First period shots. Jets 11 – Hawks 13.

Second Period

The start of the second period proved somewhat disastrous for the Jets with Richard Hughes chalking up his first of the night (20.40) within forty seconds of the restart to level things up. Within four minutes of the restart Jets fell behind by two goals with Hughes netting his second (23.27) and Sam Dunford extending the Hawks lead (24.21).

The Jets staring a fourth defeat on the bounce came to life around the half way stage of the game. Dan Hackford drew the Jets within one with a nice finish on the poweplay (27.29). Kieran Beach evened up proceedings (33.27), before Ben Lowe adding his second and game winning goal (36.15) on the powerplay with Ollie Lomax sitting in the box on the end of a high sticking call.

Second Period shots. Jets 12 – Hawks 18

Third Period

The third period saw little action as the Jets attempted to shut the game down, while the Hawks attempted to draw level. Rodgers replaced Holmes in the Jets net with eight minutes remaining. The Hawks left their net empty for the last minute of the game but the Jets held out to take the game with a 5-4 margin.

Third period shots. Jets 5 – Hawks 16

Notes

Jets Alex Foreman and Richard Haggar were both missing from the Jets line up. New signing Andy Wile took the player of the game award for the Jets. The official attendance was 49.